Muslims “Quietly condone Terrorism”—a desperate lie

While Muslims around the world have been fasting during the holy month of Ramaḍān, terrorists and politicians have continued in their respective destructive crusades which currently show no sign of abating.

Friday saw the deadly destruction of a mosque in Kuwait, the decapitation of a man at a gas plant near Grenoble in France and the mass killings at a tourist beach hotel in Sousse, Tunisia. These are the latest atrocities which have shocked people of faith and no faith to the core. According to statements on twitter, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait.

How do we stop such atrocities from taking place? Our Prime Minister David Cameron believes it solely boils down to taking on a poisonous ideology. According to the radicalisation hypothesis, it is an extremist interpretation of Islām known as Islamism which is exclusively responsible for terrorism around the world.

Just last week, Cameron addressed an audience in Bratislava where he said “The cause is ideological. It is an Islamist extremist ideology: one that says the West is bad and democracy is wrong, that women are inferior and homosexuality is evil. It says religious doctrine trumps the rule of law and Caliphate trumps nation state, and it justifies violence in asserting itself and achieving its aims. The question is: how do people arrive at this world view? I am clear that one of the reasons is that there are people who hold some of these views who don’t go as far as advocating violence, but do buy into some of these prejudices – giving the extreme Islamist narrative weight and telling fellow Muslims ‘you are part of this’. This paves the way for young people to turn simmering prejudice into murderous intent. To go from listening to firebrand preachers online to boarding a plane to Istanbul and travelling onward to join the jihadis. We’ve always had angry young men and women buying into supposedly revolutionary causes. This one is evil, is it contradictory, it is futile but it is particularly potent today. I think part of the reason it’s so potent is that it has been given this credence. So if you’re a troubled boy who is angry at the world or a girl looking for an identity, for something to believe in, and there’s something that is quietly condoned online or perhaps even in parts of your local community then it’s less of a leap to go from a British teenager to an Isil fighter or an Isil wife than it would be for someone who hasn’t been exposed to these things.”[1]

This is not the first time Cameron has taken to foreign lands to address concerns regarding Muslims. Many have found it deeply concerning that Cameron felt the need to address the subject of national security from foreign shores. If he wanted to attack British Muslims by accusing them of “quietly condoning” terrorism, he should have had the decency to do it on British soil rather than in front of a foreign audience of arms dealers at a security conference in Slovakia.

Charles Farr, director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), commenting on Cameron’s address said there was a “risk” of oversimplification given around 2.7 million Muslims live in Britain but just a few hundred had joined ISIS in the Middle East. The comments contrast with Cameron’s keynote speech on radicalisation where he toughened his rhetoric on the responsibilities Muslim leaders had to stamp out extremism. Speaking at a Jewish News conference on Israel, Farr warned of the dangers of playing up the numbers of Britons who have headed to the Middle East to join ISIS. “It’s not to say the challenges they pose are not significant, they are. But, the more we overstate them the more, frankly, we risk labelling Muslim communities as somehow intrinsically extremist, which actually despite an unprecedented wealth of social media propaganda, they have proved not to be. So I think we need to be cautious with our metaphors and with our numbers.” [2]

Just as David Cameron did with his Munich address in 2011 which paved the way for the “revised” Prevent strategy, [3] his address in Bratislava was simply a precursor to the implementation of the new Counter Terrorism and Security Bill and the intention to draw up a new “Counter Extremism” bill where he and his neoconservative allies are preparing the ground for the government’s next onslaught. The target will not be terrorism, but “non-violent extremism”. The new Counter-Terrorism measures will legally require nursery schools, teachers, health care service professionals and universities to monitor students and patients for any sign of “extremism” or “radicalisation”. The new powers represent a level of embedded state security surveillance in public life unprecedented in modern times. We already know from the government’s Prevent programme the chilling impact of such mass spying on schools, where Muslim pupils have been reported for speaking out in favour of Palestinian rights or against the role of British troops in Afghanistan. The “counter-extremism” bill announced in the Queen’s Speech [4] is about to take the anti-Muslim clampdown a whole stage further. The plans include banning orders for non-violent individuals and organisations whose politics are considered unacceptable; physical restriction orders for non-violent individuals and groups deemed “harmful”; powers to close mosques; and vetting controls on broadcasters accused of airing extremist material.

According to the Prevent strategy [5], non-violent extremism consists of a belief system which opposes ‘British Values’ which has been defined as; democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs [6]. This ideology is the precursor to violent extremism and subsequently terrorism. The theory that was deliberately engineered in the right ring neoconservative offices of the Henry Jackson Society (formerly known as the Centre for Social Cohesion) and Policy Exchange (who’s founding Chairman was none other than Michael Gove, the former Education Minister at the heart of last year’s false Trojan Horse allegations and now the current Secretary of State for Justice) is known as the ‘Conveyor Belt’ theory [7] [8]. The theory has already been challenged by many leading academics and practitioners alike who not only cite the total lack of empirical evidence for this theory, but also provide us with a more comprehensive and holistic alternative which references a plethora of driving factors which often leads to an individual turning to violent extremism and terrorism. Earlier this year, Professor Arun Kundnani published an account on how the rhetoric of radicalisation has created “a decade lost”.[9] In it, he summarises the flimsy empirical basis on which the connection between radical theology and terrorism has been built and the extent to which the burgeoning radicalisation industry, especially in academia, is linked by a revolving door to conservative political lobbyists keen to blame conservative Islam for terrorism.

For any meaningful discussion on “Islamic Extremism”, the government needed to attain a genuinely nuanced understanding of Islam and the make-up of the many different Muslim communities that reside Britain, but in 2013, the government-proposed measures to tackle “Islamic Extremism” failed to engage in any meaningful way with the plethora of voices within the Muslim community [10]. It failed miserably in defining “Islamic extremism”, conflating it with religious conservatism. The report made Muslims feel like a suspect community, further alienated them and caused a great deal of mistrust in the process. This method of disengagement is likely to backfire and cause many Muslims to become even more disenfranchised, disempowered and resent the government. To the majority, it does seem that the government officials in Whitehall are only keen to listen to the opinions which agree with their ideas about Islam and Muslims. Some of the selected (and funded) think tanks researching the causes and threat of terror were specifically set up as “Counter Terrorism” or “Counter Extremism” to receive government funding in the first place. This alone should raise suspicion since these organisations solely rely on government funding for their continual existence and thus are likely to doctor up or exaggerate their findings in order to a create climate of fear.

It does not come at any surprise that proponents of the ‘Conveyor Belt’ theory, the Quilliam Foundation are happy to support shady characters who re-enforce their narrative [11]. Earlier last week, the fiery foreign cleric Tahir ul-Qadri who is a self-proclaimed supporter of the blasphemy law in Pakistan launched what he referred to as the first Islamic curriculum on Peace and Counter-Terrorism in the world. During an interview with BBC Radio 4 [12], he explained the purpose of this curriculum and the target demographic. When asked why many people are being radicalised he responded: “I have heard the Prime Minister’s speech and I agree that some Muslim communities are silently condoning extremism and it opens the door to justify acts of terrorism. This problem of radicalisation has not been tackled properly. The government have been dividing extremism into two different categories; violent extremism and non-violent extremism. By defining extremism into two different categories they have allowed extremism to grow into terrorism. Extremism is extremism, so non-violent extremism will become violent ultimately because it will convert into terrorism. Lessons against extremism should be taught at state schools as part of the curriculum. De-radicalisation and counter-terrorism studies should be taught as subjects. It should be made compulsory for Muslim children and optional for non-Muslim children”.

It is interesting to note that even Charles Farr disagrees with such a simplistic narrative bereft of a wider context. Farr revealed the kinds of people who are drawn to the likes of ISIS often have “personal problems” and can be seeking excitement. He said, “The background of broken families, lack of integration into what we might call mainstream society, some level of criminality, sometimes family conflict, are all more than normally apparent. People join terrorist organisations in this country and in others because they get something out of them beyond merely satisfaction of an ideological commitment. Sometimes it’s about resolution of personal problems, sometimes it’s about certainty in an environment which has deprived them of it, sometimes it’s about excitement and esteem, and we should not omit the last two factors. This is the reality in Syria and Iraq but also many other contexts we’ve worked on over the past five or 10 years.” [2]

Barring the exclusion to mention the role of foreign policy, Farr’s own conclusion is not much different to what the academic researchers, practitioners and activists on the ground have been saying for years. Those behind nearly every violent attack or terror plot have cited western intervention in the Muslim world as their motivation. In reality, it should not be difficult to understand why a small section of young alienated Muslims are attracted to fight in Syria and Iraq with ISIS and to blame it solely on ideology without focussing on the factors which lead to it is being wilfully negligent. After all, the pseudo-jihadi “ideology” has been around for a long time, but there were no terror attacks in Britain before US and British forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and nor was there such a pull to travel abroad and fight with some of these groups. The government’s admission that violence is driven by injustices and grievance of its own policies in occupying and destabilising of Muslim states, engaging in and supporting torture and state kidnapping on a global scale, and support for dictatorships across the Arab and Muslim world which contradict the apparent ‘British Values’ it stands for would be an admission of their role in creating terrorism here at home and abroad.

As the journalist Owen Jones mentioned, a history student would be graded a D- if they simply reduced the rise of Nazism to “evil”. In no way would understanding these factors behind Nazism be regarded as somehow legitimising or apologising for it [13]. A fringe ideology does exist but as responsible human beings, we must not fall into the danger of exaggerating the numbers attracted to it nor should we shy away from the reasons why a small but significant number are becoming increasingly attracted towards it. A whole range of factors are involved in radicalisation. It may be different from one individual to another. As Giles Fraser recently put it, it would be facile to reduce it to one thing or the other but to solely focus on an extremist ideology is about as convincing as arguing that the murderous bits of the Bible were solely responsible for the brutality of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The language of terrorism may borrow its vocabulary from Islamic theology, it’s a useful marker of shared identity, but root motivation is as it always is: politics. [14] In the overwhelming majority of the cases, those who have been persuaded to go and take the law into their own hands by committing acts of terror here in the UK or abroad have not had any real meaningful engagement in the coherent study of Islam. Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher proportion of religious novices who’s lack of Islamic upbringing has made them susceptible to political manipulation coaxed in religious language. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation [15]. If terrorism in the name of Islam is really all about politics, then we must acknowledge that the long history of disastrous western interventions in the Middle East is a part of the cause of the horror that continues to unfold both here in the UK and abroad. We have to face up to our responsibility.

Social and personal factors play a significant role in the pathway to radicalisation. Ideology does need challenging but this only gains traction through grievances. We need services which provide safe places to allow the discussion of grievances without the fear of reporting to Prevent officers. We must not shut down means for such people to implement change using legitimate political avenues and subsequently accuse them of ‘entryism’ but rather educate and empower young Muslims to use legitimate avenues of British polity to do something meaningful about their current situation. We must explore and find solutions to factors such as social deprivation, inequalities and personal vulnerabilities which increase the likelihood of a person becoming disenfranchised or disillusioned with life in the UK. We must also explore the role of relentless media hostility, rampant Islamophobia, undue state surveillance and harassment of Muslim communities and the evidence of an increasing level of anti-Muslim attacks. Islamophobia now outstrips hostility to any religion or ethnic group in the UK and this cannot be good when it comes to preventing radicalisation.[16]

About Ghulam Esposito Haydar

Ghulam Esposito Haydar is a qualified Pharmacist and currently works in the Greater Manchester area. He has a special interest in Neuropsychiatric disorders having completed undergraduate elective modules in this area as well as completing a masters theses on this subject. He is highly active in the Da’wah and New Muslim Support circles in his city – Manchester. He sits of the board for the Myriad Foundation and fulfils the role of head of Public Relations as well as leading on their services, My Cancer Buddy and the Manchester New Muslim Network.

16 comments

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته One cannot label matters of shari’ah as “extreme” and by that I am referring to Shaykh Cameron’s comments regarding homosexuality. As Muslims we DO NOT accept homosexuality and never will as we have very clear rulings on this matter. And likewise we have Saheeh Ahadeeth regarding transvestites and their like. Anyone is free to do whatever they like, but if one wishes to be a practising Muslim, then it is non negotiable. Allah Ta’ala says: إِنَّمَا كَانَ قَوْلَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذَا دُعُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَهُمْ أَن يَقُولُوا سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا ۚ وَأُولَـٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ

A useful article. Whilst I agree Cameron’s speech was one dimensional, I think some honest introspection about the kind of culture he is referring also needs to be made by (us) Muslims. Let me explain.

If you think of prejudiced ideas that become an ugly trend – think 1970s racism, or hunting gays down to beat them straight, or common the harassment of women – then the extreme form of such ugliness very often goes hand in hand with a social culture. Where common ‘living room’ and ‘dinner table’ discussions stimulate and feed such attitudes, and this yields ugly forms of action (albeit in only a few individuals and usually when combined with other factors). This is what I think Cameron is referring to when he says:

“one of the reasons is that there are people who… buy into some of these prejudices [thus] giving the extreme (Islamist) narrative weight. This paves the way… I think part of the reason it’s so potent is that it has been given this credence… So if you’re…angry at the world…it’s less of a leap (than for someone who hasn’t been exposed to these things).”

So take the common racism of the 1970s: It was quite common-speak for white adults to voice racist ideas, jokes and sentiments – this climate needed addressing and to change. A mix of intervention laws by the Govt., campaigns, work in schools were needed, but also needed – crucially – was for people to take stock of their ideas and conversations, for honest introspection. Common racism is no longer given credence – it is no longer tolerated and has no space to flourish.

In a similar vein, it is quite common (today) for Muslim living room speak to talk of things such as a Jewish control of the media, of a media that is biased against Islam, of grand agendas aiming to weaken Muslim societies, of Muslims waking up so Islam can dominate the world again, or of a Caliphate being the ideal and superior to Parliamentary democracy. I would say many of us (Muslims) hear these types of remarks and sentiments more often than we like to admit.

This I think is what Cameron means when he speaks of: “something that is quietly condoned online or perhaps even in parts of your local community”.

I for one think Cameron is saying what he thinks and what a great many citizens also perceive. But I do also take issue with what he says, quite strongly and not only because it is so one-dimensional. It simply isn’t fair to speak of worrying Muslim living room talk and not address other forms of living room talk such as speak of “Moslems” or of immigrants, to name but two. Muslim-phobia (a more accurate term) is much too common for comfort, and does in some cases lead to violence.

But Cameron is a Prime Minister and his first job is the protection of the state and (all) its citizens. It remains a social fact that the only social group that threatens the state is (from within the) “Muslim”, and it is this VIOLENCE and the fear of violence that lies beneath public and political anxiety and reaction. In that sense we must not underestimate the DEEP impact of ‘ordinary Brits’ holidaying and being killed ‘in the name of Islam’, however much we detest and object to such linking. If we come across as and are SEEN to be defensive about it, it only hardens and spreads further the deep suspicion that many have about us and our private thoughts and ideas.

But this is Great Britain, and it finds character and deep resolve in the oddest of places. The new focus on Muslim-phobia by Eastenders will travel miles, raising awareness like never before. Yes, despite Cameron’s one-dimensional speech, we spend our lives in the best and fairest place on planet earth.

I openly and proudly say the media is against Islam and their are agents against the Ummah and a Khilafah is better then democracy.

Now perhaps in your fantasy world these are uttered by Muslims “more than “we” would like to admit” and it’s pretty clear youh have gotten very cozy in your kaffir country.

But make no doubt about it, us Muslims know where our wala and bara is. So enjoy your comfy British couch, Allah alternates the days and the Ummah will rise again sooner or later and you can stay and enjoy Britain.

It is clear you have not read any other articles on this website. You say islam 21C does not condemn ISIS and their actions thus quietly condones terror. You only came to this site to attack the creators and developers, if you opened your eyes before furiously tapping away like the keyboard warrior you are you would see a plethora of articles condemning isis and their actions. You couldnt be a bigger fool. Let me give you some of these articles on a plate.

Cameron comments are entirely based on the certain knowledge that Muslims on the whole do not vote tory, and so he loses nothing by making this type of speech. It will win him approval from the ukip leaning types.

Politicians are such cold calculating scum.

however the problem I have with many Muslims is that when incidents like Tunisia occur, there is an automatic denial that it was committed by groups like IS and instead they point to some American conspiracy.

A lot of Muslims need to wake up to this realisation that there are some stupid people in our community doing crazy things. There a minority but they are doing terrible things.

You’re probably right about Cameron. The issue isn’t one of denial about Muslims doing silly things—the point is that the hysteria and draconian measures Cameron et al. are trying to introduce using these silly Muslims are an excuse will lead to MORE angry Muslims doing silly things. It’s counterproductive if you’re looking in the opposite direction of where the problems are.

I agree the reporting by the media and politicians is biased and in some cases maliciously anti Muslim. That won’t change until Muslims become more economically and politically powerful. The media follows the cash rather than the truth.

That is still separate from the deep problems that I see amongst Muslims. Because of this many Muslims are in complete denial of the reality that were faced with.

Why won’t Islam21c condemn? Why doesn’t a site which claims to be ‘articulating Islam in the 21st century’ actually take a firm position on what is surely one of the biggest issues to confront Islam in the 21st century? We have had nothing on the recent terror attacks themselves, nothing on the Bradford sisters taking their children to Syria, nothing on the latest Isis atrocities. But when Cameron suggests that ‘some’ Muslims (and not all Muslims as this article would have one believe) are quietly condoning terror we get a furious diatribe about how Muslims are being attacked, how non-violent extremism has nothing to do with violent extremism and how it’s all because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why does what Cameron says create such anger but not the atrocities committed by Isis? Doesn’t it make these people mad that the religion they profess to cherish so much is being used to justify slave markets, sickening executions and cold-blooded mass murder? At a time when hundreds of confused young British Muslims and thousands more around Europe are travelling to Syria to be used as cannon fodder or to commit SVIED attacks, Islam21c should be offering clear guidance. But it doesn’t and it’s hard not to assume that the reason it doesn’t is because Islam21c sympathises with the goal of Isis – namely the creation of a totalitarian police state based on loose, hard-line interpretations of certain passages from the Koran. It would appear that, by its silence on the issue, Islam21c feel Isis’s atrocities can be ignored or overlooked or are a necessary evil. Quietly condoning terror is exactly what this site has been doing for months so it would seem Cameron has hit a raw nerve. Of course non-violent extremism breeds violent extremism – is the author seriously trying to suggest that a young Muslim who is brought up to have respect for other cultures and believe violence and murder is wrong is as likely to be drawn to violent extremism as one who who has been brought up to believe non-Muslims are worthless infidels and that it is the duty of Muslims to spread Islam around the world by any means necessary? Pull the other one. Fear of Islam is not being created by the government or the mass media – it is being created by the violent actions of people who call themselves Muslims.

The fact of the matter is David Cameron is trying desperately to avoid blame for the mess he and his friends have caused around with their business adventures around world.

He is using the same tired old excuse for imperialism as those before him: it is the fault of the enslaved/colonised/invaded that they fight back, because of their ‘barbaric’ ideology.

Turning this into some childishly oversimplistic black and white view of world fuels idiotic statements like yours. “If you dare to condemn us then you’re with ISIS” I can’t believe you are intelligent enough to use a computer but you believe that. Ignore all the hundreds of thousands of views on ISIS related refutations this site has racked up, just believe what Bush taught you. “You’re either with us or with the terrorists.”

With stupid thinking like this we are bound to be trapped in a cycle of violence.

Apologies for the late response. Nothing in the quotes you attribute to me bears any resemblance whatsoever to anything I wrote. You’ve put such ludicrous levels of spin on it I wonder if you’ve been taking lessons from Tony Blair. I had read the article you suggested -“Extremism” does NOT cause terrorism by Dr Butt – when the author can only make it to the second paragraph before bringing up Islamaphobia and the neoconservative bogeymen you know it’s going to be just more of the same worn out, head in the sand drivel. Conclusive scholarly opinions on ISIS, (recommended in another post) is the most intelligent article I have read on this site in that in his preamble Abdullāh Ladadwi actually addressed what was really going on in the world at the time he wrote it. I disagree however that people who travel to Syria to fight and end up joining Isis aren’t at risk of radicalisation. The individual condemnations of Isis are fascinating. Interesting how, depending on how you define ‘believers’, the Saudi scholars seem to be suggesting that it’s only Muslims killing Muslims that is a problem as if killing non-Muslims is OK. Charming. At least they highlight the fact it’s mainly Muslims killing Muslims – something that appears to be lost on you. Colonial powers did mess the region up and so did the corrupt dictators they installed afterwards. European nations may have at one time benefited from divisions within Islam but they certainly didn’t create them. But that was then. You talk of the Colonial powers having enslaved and invaded – well look at what’s going on right now – Isis doing exactly that as well as a whole lot worse. You do know they have slave markets in Raqqa now yes? Actual slave markets. So you can go and watch a man being thrown off a tall building for being gay in the morning and then pop down the slave market to buy a kidnapped child (who’s likely witnessed her father and brothers being dragged away to be shot) in the afternoon – all in the name of Allah. Is that not barbaric enough for you? Have you no conscience left? If you’re a Muslim does it not make you angry or upset to see your religion being used to condone such behaviour? And don’t start passing off conspiracy theories as fact – suggesting it’s a CIA plot or the work of Jews. Or for that matter just a few silly Muslims doing silly things. This is an ultra-violent mass movement based on corrupted interpretations of the Koran that is murdering Muslims and non-Muslims alike and poses a terrifying threat both here and abroad. It is being fuelled by angry, young disillusioned European Muslims who have been influenced by its poisonous, supremacist ideology at home and are subsequently flocking to Iraq and Syria or sitting at home dreaming of how they can conduct glorious Jihad by blowing up a bus full of innocent people. Islam21c – which I read in the forlorn hope of finding progressive, balanced debate – more or less ignores this reality because it doesn’t tie in with its own Islam is superior agenda. But this is what’s really happening in the world right now, get your head out of the sand and stop pretending it isn’t.

How do you think we can stop people from our community doing evil while thinking they are doing good? Whatever our community or scholars have been doing is obviously not enough. You have married women abandoning their husbands taking their children to war zones thinking they are doing good. Young men going to Syria very often killing other Muslims and innocent civilians. We obviously have a serious problem? Don’t you agree?